Operation Enduring Disaster - Breaking With Afghan Policy

[Dover]

The Nation
Nov. 17, 2008

Afghanistan has been almost continuously at war for thirty years, longer than both World Wars and the American war in Vietnam combined. Each occupation of the country has mimicked its predecessor. A tiny interval between wars saw the imposition of a malignant social order, the Taliban, with the help of the Pakistani military and the late Benazir Bhutto, the prime minister who approved the Taliban takeover in Kabul.

Over the last two years, the US/NATO occupation of that country has run into serious military problems. Given a severe global economic crisis and the election of a new American president--a man separated in style, intellect and temperament from his predecessor--the possibility of a serious discussion about an exit strategy from the Afghan disaster hovers on the horizon. The predicament the United States and its allies find themselves in is not an inescapable one, but a change in policy, if it is to matter, cannot be of the cosmetic variety.

Washington's hawks will argue that, while bad, the military situation is, in fact, still salvageable. This may be technically accurate, but it would require the carpet-bombing of southern Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan, the destruction of scores of villages and small towns, the killing of untold numbers of Pashtuns and the dispatch to the region of at least 200,000 more troops with all their attendant equipment, air and logistical support. The political consequences of such a course are so dire that even Dick Cheney, the closest thing to Dr. Strangelove that Washington has yet produced, has been uncharacteristically cautious when it comes to suggesting a military solution to the conflict.

..snip..

Obama would be foolish to imagine that Petraeus can work a miracle cure in Afghanistan. The cancer has spread too far and is affecting US troops as well. If the American media chose to interview active-duty soldiers in Afghanistan (on the promise of anonymity), they might get a more accurate picture of what is happening inside the US Army there.

I learned a great deal from Jules, a 20-year-old American soldier I met recently in Canada. He became so disenchanted with the war that he decided to go AWOL, proving--at least to himself--that the Afghan situation was not an inescapable predicament. Many of his fellow soldiers, he claims, felt similarly, hating a war that dehumanized both them and the Afghans. "We just couldn't bring ourselves to accept that bombing Afghans was no different from bombing the landscape" was the way he summed up the situation...cont'd

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081201/ali